Environmental Design Institute - Summer 2022
Tyler School of Art, Temple University
During the summer of 2022, I led the Environmental Design Institute, a two-week program at Temple University designed for tenth, eleventh, and twelfth-grade students exploring careers in landscape architecture and horticulture. This immersive experience took place at Temple University's world-class research facilities, integrating science, design, and sustainability.
Working with a diverse group of high school students from various ethnic and regional backgrounds in the United States, I facilitated engaging activities, including a virtual exploration of their peers' localities through Google Earth.
My role was to create a positive and engaging learning environment that not only fostered student growth and connection but also aligned with the program goals of exploring diverse careers and disciplines within landscape architecture and horticulture.
Subjects Covered
- Basic introductions to Landscape Architecture, Horticulture, and Ecology including important vocabularly
- Botany Basics, Tree IDing
- Drawing: Basics, Blind Contours, Plants
- Architectural Drawing including Plan & Perspective
- Critique Etiquette
- Urban Ecology, Topography, Hydrology
- Segregation through Design
- With a special emphasis on how everything is connected and the perception of land use spaces
Program
- Hands on drawing lessons, interaction with other students, interaction with trees and plants
- Sharing work, critique, comment and feedback
- Local walks & field trips including: Temple Communtiy Garden, LandHealth Institute, green stormwater infrastructure sites by the Philadelphia Water Department, Licarous Walk, and The Rail Park
- Collaboration with OLIN that included visualizing and drawing lessons by OLIN professionals and a tour of the facilities including the materials library and 3D lab
Final Projects
As a culminating moment for the program and to showcase what students have learned over the two weeks. Each student undertook the challenge of designing an intervention project in a location meaningful to them, producing a comprehensive case study, plan drawing, and perspective drawing. Students were allowed to use mediums of their choices including hand drawing, iPad drawing (Morpholio Trace), and even Minecraft. Their projects were showcased in Tyler University's Summer Program exhibition.
This student designed a park in a parking lot that is no longer in use near his home in Houston, TX.
The perspective drawing includes moments of his family driving by or interacting with the space.
• • •
Based in NJ, this student designed a garden for her family's house.
She went above and beyond by also choosing a planting palette.
She incorporated rain gardens, taking hydrology and slope into consideration.
• • •
This student from Bronx, NY reimagined improving a city intersection that was on his commute home from high school.
He named it Arcadia Park and considered fence height to allow for a more welcoming environment.
• • •
Based in Philadelphia, this student choose to redesign the abandoned lot next her house.
Without prompting, after trying both hand and iPad drawing techniques, she chose to use Minecraft to create her project.
This student is now enrolled in Landscape Architecture at Thomas Jefferson University.
• • •
